


shower your affection, let it rain on me

by Wanderingchronicle



Series: no choir [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Anguished declaration of...something?, But also: Not Doing That, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fix-it fic, Fluff and Angst, Grief, Ill Advised Night Watch Smooches, Just because he's back doesn't mean he never died, M/M, Night Watch Chats, Pining, Post Resurrection, Talking about your feelings, Trauma, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 07:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15680808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderingchronicle/pseuds/Wanderingchronicle
Summary: It’s a little overwhelming, in truth. There’s all this attention on him, all of the Nein making a fuss in their own way. He’s the centre of everyone’s attention, except for one.Caleb is sorting through spell components about ten metres off, brows furrowed. He’s barely spoken to Molly or to anyone, and abruptly all Molly wants is the slightest indication Caleb is happy to have him back.





	shower your affection, let it rain on me

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I hope this beefier installment makes up for it.
> 
> And thus, "no choir" grows a plot.

__"shower your affection, let it rain on me  
pull down the mountains, drag your cities to the sea, yeah  
shower your attention, let it rain on me  
don't leave me on this white cliff  
let it slide down to the sea."

florence and the machine, "big god"

 

Looking back on it, it was hard to put a finger on the exact moment he started to have these feelings.

It’s not about sex exactly. Sex is fun and transactional and he knows how to deal with it, what other people want from him and what he wants from them. He knows how it goes -- he’s pretty, and confident or at least good at acting like it. He can give people what they want, and get some fun out of for himself too. It’s tidy, everyone gets what they want.

Caleb Widogast leans in to listen to Nott, and Molly ignores the sudden flare of wanting in his chest. Being the subject of Caleb’s undivided attention is like being pinned down by the sheer force of it, like an insect pinned to a collectors board, and he is not sure how he feels about how badly he wants it.

It’s odd to envy the things Caleb gives his attention to. He looks at spell components and unfolding battles like it’s possible to disassemble them down to their raw materials and there’s some truth there that he’s yet to find. He watches the world rather than living in it, trying to puzzle out something Molly can only guess at.

Caleb smiles, but rarely and furtively, like he’s afraid of getting caught, like he’s not allowed. Molly wants to smooth out the crease between his brows, to remove whatever invisible weight bows Caleb’s shoulders down into a perpetual anxious hunch.

Molly wants a lot. Caleb is an enigma, obviously damaged, and Molly is used to unanswered questions but it’s not answers he wants. He wants to see what Caleb looks like when he’s not tense and miserable. He wants to know what he looks like relaxed and soft and mindless of his surroundings, what he looks like  _ comfortable. _

He wants, he wants, he wants. And Caleb is fiercely standoffish, almost proud with it, like his paranoia and his filth are hard fought for and won. There’s no way he’s going to be allowed to prise him open, to tend to the wounds festering under layers of grime and hurt. Not now, not soon. Maybe not ever.

He’ll have to be careful, Molly knows. More than that, he wants to be careful. Caleb doesn’t look like anyone has treated him with care in years, unkempt hair and beard and every article of clothing he owns fraying at the edges. How might he thrive, given time and kindness and rest and good meals? What kind of person would Caleb be, with time and care?

So he waits, and he lifts his chin and smiles whenever Caleb looks at him.  _ Come closer _ , he thinks, but Caleb just looks at him the same way he looks at everything -- like he’s trying to mentally disassemble it into its component parts. He doesn’t look at Mollymauk that way nearly enough.  _ Go on _ , Molly thinks and does not say,  _ come on and figure me out. _

There’s a fine line between lifting your chin in challenge, baring your jugular to tell people you’re not afraid of them biting it out, and a throat bared in submission and horns tilted all the way back. He doesn’t know if Caleb knows that difference, if he would mistake an attempt at honest vulnerability as arrogance, as an insult.

He wonders what Caleb would do, if Molly trusted him with that kind of vulnerability. He knows better than to hope it would go well.

Of course, he can’t help but wonder what it might feel like to have Caleb’s hands on him. When he closes his eyes, the Caleb he imagines is careful and methodical, every touch measured and considered.

He’d like that, he thinks, being slowly taken apart. Caleb’s lips pressed carefully to his, warm and pliant and no more than Caleb decides to give him at that moment.

More interesting, though, is the idea of what Caleb might like, what he might want Molly to do to him. He knows Caleb is not as standoffish as he seems, that he picks up Nott and whirls her around and pats Molly on the cheek and makes jokes that he then studiously denies. He’s a little magnetic, and sometimes he wonders how fucked he would be if Caleb decided to bring that force of personality to bear.

While under the Zone of Truth, Caleb just about pins him to the chair with the force of his gaze, and Molly doesn’t know quite how to deal with the quiet flare of satisfaction at being the centre of Caleb’s focus, at being pinned down for examination.

He wants more, both for the selfish pleasure of Caleb’s attention and because he wants Caleb to deem him trustworthy. He’s not allowed any closer than he already is, and he knows it, and it’s selfish but he wants Caleb to let him in.

He watches the back of Caleb’s head, still bent down to talk to Nott. There’s a quiet, raspy laugh from Caleb’s direction. Jester coughs next to him, and he glances sideways to see her raising her eyebrows questioningly.

“I don’t get it,” she whispers, “he’s smelly. He’s quite nice really, but he is smelly, and also dirty.” 

“I don’t get it either,” Molly whispers back, “it just is.”

But when he thinks about it, it’s pretty understandable. Under the grime and the beard, Caleb has high cheekbones and a strong jaw, the sharpness of his features offset by long-lashed blue eyes. And he’s sweet to Nott, and to his magic cat, and sometimes to the rest of the Nein, in fits and starts. And good as Caleb was at torching people to ash, he also seemed to hate it.

Of course he’d been intrigued. Handsome, reticent, quietly brilliant, and almost certainly in need of the kind of wonder a Carnival could bring to someone’s evening. And if Molly flirted a little, well, he flirted with everyone.

He got a brief look at Caleb in the bathhouse -- tall and wiry, almost feline-looking. He’d liked the look of his hands, particularly. He had a callus on his thumb from holding a pen, square palms and long bony fingers. And if he daydreamed about Caleb tilting his head back for a kiss, ink-stained fingers sliding into Molly’s hair or pulling him closer by the waist, no one had to know.

\--

Things are going well, he thinks. The Nein are starting to trust each other, tentatively, like each other maybe, and they’re getting stronger and more competent with the passing days.

Caleb laughs more, smiles more, starts to joke around a little. Sometimes, something seems to delight or excite him and Molly sees a glimpse of the person Caleb might be underneath all the walls he’s built up. They’ve a few things in common, Molly thinks -- Caleb seems to get a thrill from new magic, from new experiences, from stretching the limits of his power. It’s understandable. Everything is new to Molly, everything a source of wonder.

Then their friends go missing and everything goes to shit.

\--

Molly blinks awake in a hole in the ground. He can hear voices, far away, and someone is clutching at his hands. 

He blinks again, and sits up. He’s surrounded by dirt, wrapped in a tapestry, and he feels like absolute ass. Jester is just about sitting in his lap, weeping into his shirt.   
  
“Oh hey,” he says, stroking her hair off her face, “we got you back. Did we kick their ass?”   
  
He looks around at the assembled faces, and has the awful feeling that he’s missed something. Yasha’s makeup is ruined, tears streaming down her high cheekbones. Everyone looks exhausted, and there’s a firbolg with bright pink hair standing a little ways back, looking slightly puzzled.   
  
“Ja,” Caleb says, from his position behind Fjord, “we kicked their ass.”   
  
Jester chews on her bottom lip for a few moments, looking like she’s debating something, then thumps him on the chest. He hisses at her reflexively, tail lashing under the draped folds of tapestry.

“You died, Molly,” she wails, “and you didn’t let any of us say goodbye! You grandiose asshole, we thought we’d lost you! I thought I’d never see you again!” 

Oh.

The hole in the ground makes sense now -- it’s a grave.

He shudders, shrinking back from the dirt walls, and in response Jester blinks at him and then stands, throwing him casually over one shoulder as she climbs out of the hole. Before she’s fully set him down Yasha has swept him up in a tight, bone-cracking hug, her face buried in his filthy hair. She’s shaking like a leaf, hot tears still spilling down her cheeks.

Molly doesn’t say a word, just lets her hold him. Out of sight, he hears the rest of the Nein begin to talk about camp for the night, somewhere further away from here.

They all settle down and make camp a short walk away, largely in silence. The Firbolg, who is apparently named either Deuces or Clay, presses a cup of hot tea into his hands without any particular comment, which he is grateful for.

He doesn’t dare ask how long he was gone. However long it was, it was a long time. Yasha won’t leave his side, and at one point Beau approaches him, opens her mouth, and then immediately breaks into awful shaky sobs. She kept his cards for him, which was nicer of her than he would have believed under other circumstances, but loss seems to make people go a bit funny in the head.

It’s a little overwhelming, in truth. There’s all this attention on him, all of the Nein making a fuss in their own way. He’s the centre of everyone’s attention, except for one.

Caleb is sorting through spell components about ten metres off, brows furrowed. He’s barely spoken to Molly or to anyone, and abruptly all Molly wants is the slightest indication Caleb is happy to have him back.

He doesn’t receive it. Caleb eats mechanically, claims the first watch alongside Nott, then goes back to whatever he’s doing with his spell components -- he looks all of them over, trying to discern something about them Molly cannot make head or tail of before tucking them into various pockets in his ratty coat.

Molly has a theory that there’s some kind of system in place, that specific areas of the coat correspond to different things Caleb might be carrying. He always puts his oil and his liquorice root in the same places -- down by his left hip, and near his left collar respectively. If he observes well enough, he can probably figure out where everything else goes.

It’s these things that make his guts twist, and he can’t make sense of it. It’s absurd to be jealous of a bunch of spell components for having Caleb’s undivided attention, but here he is being driven out of his mind by it. For all that everyone else has been making a fuss, even Beau who normally maintains that she hates him, Caleb hasn’t even spoken directly to him since immediately after he woke up in the grave.

Everyone else busies themselves laying out bedrolls. Jester comes over to plant a kiss on his forehead and fuss over his blankets, and Yasha curls up next to him with her arms around her sword, just close enough that they’re nearly touching.

He’s not tired, though, not in that way. Instead he watches the flames of the fire dance, watches Caleb continue taking inventory. At one point Caleb picks something up, squints at it for a moment, then breaks off a few leaves and chews on them. Whatever he finds seems to satisfy him, because he nods and tucks the plant back into a coat pocket. 

It’s quite soothing to watch. Caleb’s coat is spread out around him, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and hair tied off his face. He looks focused, calm and certain, like the process of looking through all of his components settles him somehow. 

Caleb looks younger like this, and something about it makes Molly feel like a voyeur. He’d wanted to know what Caleb was like when he felt comfortable enough to relax, but not like this. Not as an intrusion on what is clearly supposed to be a private moment -- he’d wanted Caleb to feel comfortable relaxing around him. To be a part of those private moments, rather than an unwanted observer.

“Do you want something, Mollymauk?”

Molly blinks. While he hadn’t been paying attention, Caleb’s gaze had turned on him, all the spell components carefully tucked away. His eyes glow, eerie in the dim firelight.

Caleb’s eyes pin him in place. There is no escape, and Molly doesn’t want one. Far from it. Instead, a guilty thrill courses through him at being the centre of Caleb’s attention. It’s intent and inquisitive and not-quite-wary, and Molly drinks it in despite himself.

“Can’t sleep,” he says, “and those must have been interesting, if you spent so long looking at them.”

Silence, while Caleb distractedly smooths his hands over the lining of the coat. “Probably not to you,” he murmurs, folding his hands in his lap.

Molly wiggles his way out of his bedroll, stepping lightly across the camp to settle just outside touching range. “Not in themselves,” he replies, watching the tense lines of Caleb’s face, “but I think people’s interests are in themselves interesting.”

Caleb snorts softly. “It’s all very dry, I assure you,” he sighs, “just making sure I have...everything. I do not want to be caught short.”

“We’re lucky then,” Molly smiles, “that you’re trying so hard. But, it does also look like you derived some enjoyment from it as well.”

Silence. Molly looks down at his lap, wondering if he’s said the wrong thing, that something will make Caleb shrink back and the moment will be gone. Caleb hasn’t screwed himself up like he’s bracing himself for pain, Molly can see his hands still loosely curled in his lap.

“It is good,” Caleb says slowly, “when things are in order. Easier. When I know where I stand, when there is...a system, I can...think about less things.”

Molly lifts his eyes to look Caleb in the face, chewing on his lower lip. “You don’t like change,” he says quietly, watching Caleb’s expression. 

“I don’t like…” Caleb trails off, staring into the fire. Molly waits, tail sweeping around to curl around his crossed legs, like a barrier between him and Caleb.

Caleb turns away from the flames, lacing his fingers together. “It is okay when things change,” he murmurs, “but I do not do so well without systems. To be able to rely on things, to know where they are...ja, das ist gut.”

Molly nods slowly, his tail curling up thoughtfully at the tip. The firelight paints Caleb in golds and oranges, catching on his hair and casting deep shadows on his face. The more he learns, the more he feels he doesn’t know.

He thinks back to other moments, to sleeping in Caleb’s arms in Hupperdook and then again in the tent the night before he died. It makes sense, how much Caleb loves Nott, if Nott can give him something he needs -- the steady, reliable love of someone who believes the best of you.

“There was actually something I wanted,” Molly blurts out, “but, you can say no. Don’t...you don’t owe it to me.”

Caleb cocks his head slightly, watching Molly intently. If he had thought he’d truly been the focus of Caleb’s attention before, he was wrong. Caleb looks at him like all he wants is to take him apart and figure out what makes him tick, and Molly would gladly let him.

Molly inhales shakily, setting his shoulders. “I’d like a hug,” he admits, looking down at his hands. He feels rather than sees his tail start to twitch anxiously.

He hears Caleb stop breathing for a split second. It’s selfish to hope that this means as much to Caleb as it does to him, but Molly has never been a selfless man.

Caleb shifts, and when Molly glances up Caleb has shifted over to make room for him on the coat. “I don’t want to squish your components,” Molly objects, and Caleb snorts out a laugh.

“You will not sit on anything important,” Caleb replies, with what might be a smile. It’s hard to tell, in the low light.

Molly hesitantly shuffles over, seating himself on the worn-out leather. Caleb waits for him to settle, his tail lashing nervously, then wraps an arm around his waist and squeezes.

It feels comfortable, friendly, and before Molly can stop himself he’s welling up. He turns his face into Caleb’s shoulder, throwing both arms around his neck, and tries to fight the tears off. Caleb says nothing, makes no attempt at platitudes, but his arm is warm and secure around Molly’s waist and it feels like that light embrace is all that’s stopping him from drifting apart.

Caleb smells like stale sweat and old leather and something vaguely herbaceous, and he runs warm. Molly doesn’t want to move away, but he knows he has to.

He disentangles himself from Caleb reluctantly -- they’re still pressed shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee, but he has half a mind to ask Caleb to put his arm around him again. The other half is scolding him furiously for considering asking such a thing.

“Why?” Caleb asks, glancing at Molly askance.

He could bullshit. He could lie or pretend he doesn’t understand the question. He doesn’t think Caleb would call him on it, either.

Molly licks his lips, turning away from Caleb to look into the fire. “I came back, and all of a sudden everyone wanted to...be in my space, say hello, say welcome back. But not you.”

The silence is gravid. He can hear Caleb breathing unsteadily next to him, and he wants more than anything to look over at his face but he is far too much of a coward.

“You were dead, Molly,” Caleb says eventually. There’s something awful in his voice, something wrenching and heartbroken. “We buried you.”

Molly tears his eyes away from the fire, to find that Caleb is looking directly at him. Under all the smears of dirt and his frequent dour attitude, Caleb’s face is surprisingly expressive, and the sheer grief etched into every line of his face is physically painful to witness.

He’s intruding on something Caleb had wanted to keep private, he realises, and in that moment there’s nothing he wants more than to look away. But the force of Caleb’s gaze has him pinned in place, unable to do anything but witness.

“We didn’t know if we could,” Caleb swallows, “if we -- I, would ever see you again. You are here now, but the rest of us, we lost you. We mourned for you.” 

Molly nods, just the once. It’s not something he can understand, not something he’s lived through, but there’s a truth to it. “I’m sorry,” he manages, “that was selfish of me to ask for.”

“Nein,” Caleb replies, slightly wild eyed, “I shouldn’t -- you are here now, I am being ridiculous, I just,”

Impulsively, Molly reaches out to set a hand on Caleb’s cheek. Caleb stills, leaning into the touch like a man starved, his eyes fluttering shut.

“I was so preoccupied in how I felt about dying,” Molly says quietly, “that I didn’t think about how my dying might have wounded you, and the rest of the Nein. Everyone was making a huge fuss of me, and I sulked like a child because I wanted  _ your _ attention. That wasn’t good of me, Caleb.”

Caleb’s eyes snap open. “My attention,” he murmurs, more to himself than to Molly.

Then he laughs, a soft raspy sound that makes Molly’s heart kick violently in his chest. “Mollymauk,” he says gently, “you already had my attention. You’re hard to ignore, surely you know this.”

Molly flushes, hands clenching in his lap. “I,” he starts, but his throat seizes and all the things he could say die in his throat, “I meant, attention not just in the general sense, I know what I look like, I mean--”

He cuts himself off, looking down at his lap. Caleb shifts, and it looks like he’s getting up, Molly cringes a little despite himself. He’s said too much, far too soon, and he can almost hear Caleb rebuilding the walls built around himself, shutting Molly out.

Calloused fingers brush Molly’s jaw, tilting it gently upwards. He lets it happen, shivering slightly at the light touch. Caleb is much closer than he was, nearly nose to nose, and he’s giving Molly a warm, wondering look. Like he’s something Caleb wants to examine more closely, something delightful he could lose himself in for hours, like a new book or a new magic item to turn over and inspect.

“May I?” Caleb asks quietly. He’s so close Molly can feel the heat of his breath, see his throat working as he swallows.

It’s not close enough.

“Please,” he murmurs, bringing a hand up to push Caleb’s hair out of his face.

Caleb leans in slowly, briefly bumping noses before tentatively brushing his mouth against Molly’s. Molly makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, chasing the touch, and then Caleb’s other arm tugs him forward until he’s in Caleb’s lap.

“Molly,” he sighs, hand fisting in the back of Molly’s shirt as he leans in again, this time more confidently. Caleb’s lips are dry and it’s abundantly obvious that he hasn’t kissed anyone in a very long time, but the press of his mouth against Molly’s sends sparks skipping down his spine regardless.

Caleb radiates heat like a small furnace, and Molly drinks in the warmth of Caleb’s mouth, bleeding through the thin linen of his shirt where Caleb’s hand rests on his lower back. A purr bubbles up in the back of his throat, his tail curling happily in a circle around the two of them.

Molly curls one hand in the fabric of Caleb’s shirt, the other tangling in his hair. Caleb lets out a tiny, pleased noise, the kiss turning open-mouthed and wanting, and Molly licks into his mouth with a soft moan.

Behind them, Yasha rolls over and smacks her lips loudly, and it’s like the spell is broken. Molly and Caleb jump apart, Caleb yanking his coat over his shoulders and Molly backing away to a safe, friendly distance.

It’s a poor disguise for what they’ve been doing -- Molly can’t speak for himself, but Caleb’s eyes are wide and dilated, a soft pink flush colouring his cheeks and disappearing down the neckline of his shirt.

It’s something Molly had guiltily pictured, but the reality is simultaneously prettier and more heart-wrenching. His expression has gone all soft and wide-eyed, with very little trace of the dour hermit of a man Molly first met.

The woods rustle, and Caleb’s head whips around, staring into the gloom. Molly follows his eyes and huffs out a laugh. “It’s Nott,” he says quietly, jerking his head in her direction.

Just inside the silver thread, Nott hops down from a tree, padding across the clearing. “There’s a really big badger out there,” she says, “but I think it doesn’t want anything to do with us. Molly, what are you doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Molly shrugs, scratching his head. He can still feel the soft brush of Caleb’s fingers against his jaw, which is just fine. He’s not bothered at all.

Nott harrumphs. “I suppose you got a lot of sleep in a hole in the ground,” she says, “but you look horrible, so maybe you should have some more beauty sleep.”

Caleb laughs softly, shaking his head. “She is right, ja,” he murmurs, “you look very tired, Mollymauk.”

Molly nods mutely, sliding back into his bedroll. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Nott settle down next to Caleb, both of them staring out into the dark. Mismatched as they are, they look companionable, comfortable. He ignores the pang of envy in his chest, curling up against Yasha’s side.

Just the once, he looks up, and find Caleb looking at him. Caleb blinks slowly, then turns back to watch the treeline.

Molly sleeps, and dreams of Caleb’s lips warm against his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos feed the fic machine. As always, find me on tumblr as Wanderingchronicle and Discord as VoxLexicon#4486.


End file.
